


a gift, a curse, a tv guide

by callabang



Series: witch fic [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Crafts, Familiars, Gen, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers, Plants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:29:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang
Summary: Honestly, he’s not sure what Patty was actually looking for in a witch apprentice. Someone with a foreboding aura and a knack for spellwork, probably. Too bad what he got was TK, who’s mostly good making sure Patty talks to someone besides his cat familiar and ruining the ambiance.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Series: witch fic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712791
Comments: 61
Kudos: 346
Collections: Flyers Fic Exchange 2020





	a gift, a curse, a tv guide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petals/gifts).

> This was such a fun treat! Even odds this becomes a whole series about TK/Nolan witch hi-jinx. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thanks to manybumblebees for letting me steal your ideas and also for the beta. Title from Teenage Witch by Suzi Wu.
> 
> Apologies to MacKenzie Blackwood, who as far as I know has never done anything wrong except be kind of a dick in a homebrew Flyers RPG game my friends and I played one time.

Patty has taken to sending him out on errands, sometimes when he really needs supplies and sometimes, TK is pretty sure, when he just wants some peace and quiet. The errands vary a lot, from buying goat milk at the fancy-pants organic supermarket, to delivering potions to the customers in town, to spending an entire night painstakingly coaxing toads into a bucket in the light of the half moon.

TK is still suspicious about that one.

Besides the occasional foray into magical ingredient collection, his job tends much more towards “personal assistant” than “witch apprentice.” It’s for the best, honestly, because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a magical bone in his body, and also he thought it was a joke when he saw the job listing on Craigslist.

Honestly, he’s not sure what Patty was actually looking for in an apprentice. Someone with a foreboding aura and a knack for spellwork, probably. Too bad what he got was TK, who’s mostly good for smoothing over the whole “witch” thing with the townspeople, making sure Patty talks to someone besides his cat familiar Winnie, making pizza bagels in the kitchen oven, and ruining the ambiance.

(TK had asked, during his extremely brief interview, if that was short for “Winnifred” or “Winnipeg,” but Patty had just let out an enormous sigh and told him he was hired.)

Today’s errand list is pretty doable. It should only take TK an hour or two, just enough time for Patty to call his mom without having to keep up the pretense that he’s a mysterious magical being that sprung forth as a fully-formed scowly bitch living in a rickety Victorian at the edge of town.

It’s a nice house, with good bones. TK is going to paint the shutters neon orange. 

The first thing on the list is normal grocery shopping, because Patty used to subsist on takeout until TK came around to mother-hen him into semi-healthy eating habits. TK gets all their normal staples and also some grocery store California rolls, because he’s trying to ease Patty first into sushi and then into going to a restaurant where people can see him. He also gets more pizza bagels and a stuffed mouse for Winnie, even though Patty keeps insisting that she’s not a pet and is above trivial things like that.

Next up are the deliveries, which are the main area where TK is actually helpful. It turns out that the sunny residential little town they live in is not totally jazzed about a witch living among them. It’s pretty close-minded of them, in TK’s opinion. Sure, Patty is a bit of a diva, and moody as hell, but it’s not like he’s eating babies or dancing naked in the woods. He mostly just sells stuff and keeps to himself.

It’d be different if it was the little kids who were afraid of him — his house is pretty creepy looking, just totally ripe for ghost stories. But little kids love Patty. Just last week a little girl in a Princess Elsa dress had toddled up to them when they were harvesting dandelions in the park to tell him solemnly that she liked his hair.

Patty had gone the color of a tomato; it was beautiful. 

It’s just the adults who are dicks about it.

Ever since TK moved into the spare room — rent free, baby — he’s made it his personal mission to rehabilitate Patty’s image. Yeah, he wears a lot of black, and yeah, his tattoos move around his body, and yeah, he and Winnie sometimes fix visitors with the same flat stare when they touch something they aren’t supposed to. But really he’s a big softie.

So TK makes sure to turn up the charm when he’s in town. He chats with the cashiers when he’s checking out; he helps old ladies with their groceries; he makes sure to come across as a lovably solicitous hick, which is close enough to the truth to be pretty easy for him.

Mostly he’s been pretty successful, he thinks. Orders are up ever since the senior center found out how good Patty’s arthritis cream is, and also since they started selling his special brownies. 

(“These aren’t even that strong,” Patty had said when they were testing the recipe. TK had just spent the past several hours laying dazedly on the soft carpet of his bedroom, idly watching dust mites drift around in the sunlight. “The big jar in the pantry will fuck you up way worse.”)

There’s still a few rude customers, and also lots of people who just don’t buy their products, but at least no one crosses the street when they see Patty coming anymore.

Today, there’s just two deliveries. The first one is for the Girouxs. It’s a pretty dope set of teething rings, spelled to soothe pain and calm stress, and also a stuffed fish that TK made that he threw in. He’s been experimenting with sewing recently, partly so that he can make the hexbags that Patty sells in fun patterns and partly so he can make Patty a cape that he’ll hate. Also, the Giroux baby, Gavin, is the most perfect baby in the whole world, and he deserves a stuffed fish to play with.

Luckily Ryanne and Gavin are home when TK knocks, so he gets to spend fifteen minutes breathing in the soft baby smell and cooing.

“I like the new packaging,” Ryanne says when she opens the teething rings. 

The new packaging  _ is  _ good. TK had decided that the sad little plastic bag thing Patty was doing was very much not doing them any favors, marketing-wise. Now all the products come in a little brown bag sealed with a little sticker version of Winnie. It turns out you can buy, like, pretty much anything on Etsy. 

TK also put a cat sticker on Patty’s diary that he pretends is a spell notebook, but he doesn’t think he’s noticed yet.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. “It looks more polished, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” she says. Gavin starts fussing a little, so TK hands him back. She gives him a teething ring and he immediately crams it into his mouth, gumming happily. “Say, Claude and I are going to have a little barbeque next week, do you want to come?”

Giroux barbeques: also the best.

“Can—”   
“Obviously Nolan can come,” she says with a little smile. “If you can convince him to leave the cat at home; Claude is allergic.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” TK says with a laugh. It’ll be good for Patty to get out of the house, and also for him to eat his weight in cheeseburgers.

The second delivery is to MacKenzie Blackwood, who gets a shipment of muscle cream once a month. TK doesn’t know for certain but he’s pretty sure Blackwood is kind of a dick to Patty about the witch thing, based on the way Patty stubbornly refuses to ever talk about it. Still buys Patty’s stuff, though.

Blackwood’s products come in a plastic bag. 

When that’s done, all that TK has left is plant shopping. When he started working, he fucked up the plant shopping many times and then had to come back, which is why he now has a close personal friendship with Oskar, who has righted his plant wrongs on several occasions.

Now Patty usually just calls ahead.

When TK arrives at the nursery, Oskar already has the little pots set aside in their cardboard holder. They don’t move or anything when TK pets a finger along their stems, but soon they’ll be fluttering their leaves in annoyance when TK runs the vacuum or drooping sadly until he plays them their favorite true crime podcast.

Patty says the plants don’t do that, but TK is wise to his ways.

“Yeah, you’ll be needy little shits in no time,” TK whispers to the box, while Oskar pretends not to hear. 

“It’s fifty-six eighty,” he says, and TK hands him the cash and also a little jar of clippings from Patty’s anti-poison ivy. “Oh, hey, tell Nolan thanks.”

“I will,” TK says, scooping up the plants. “See you later.”

It takes TK three trips to unload the car. First he puts the groceries in the kitchen — Patty’s charmed the cabinets so they’ll put themselves away. He refuses to do the same thing for TK’s closet, citing some magical rules of balance that TK feels certain are bullshit. 

Then he collects the plants and heads to the sunroom in the back, where Patty likes to work in the afternoons. He’s folded his freakily long body up into the armchair in the corner, holding some heinously long book with some kind of weird runes on the cover. Maybe he’s reading it, or maybe he’s holding his phone somewhere back there.The skateboard ghost on his thigh gives TK a little wave. 

“Hey Patty,” he says, depositing the plants on the workbench. Winnie appears from nowhere to wind around his ankles. “Oskar says thanks. How’s your mom?”

“She’s good,” Patty says, looking up from his book. “Wait, how did you—”

“It’s Saturday, dude, gotta call your mom on Saturday,” TK says casually, cheerfully ignoring the way Patty’s cheeks go a little pink. Like TK said: a softie.

“You wanna go to a barbeque next week?” he says, crouching down to pet over Winnie. She arches her back into his hands so he can scratch her just right. “It’s just a small one, at Claude and Ryanne’s.”

“I guess,” Patty says absentmindedly, getting up to examine the plants. TK does a very small fist bump; he didn’t even have to bribe Patty, which he was prepared to do. Usually promising not to play fishing simulator video games during witching hour does the job.

“These are the wrong plants,” Patty says.

_ Well, _ TK thinks with a wince.  _ Can’t win 'em all. _

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter.](https://twitter.com/callabang_)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] a gift, a curse, a tv guide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26443879) by [frecklebombfic (frecklebomb)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklebomb/pseuds/frecklebombfic)


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